Paving way for greener future?

S.J. maps out road to sustainable communities

More residents would live in apartments or townhouses, more would rely on buses and trains to get around, and thousands of acres of agricultural land would be preserved if a new vision for 2040 comes true.

The public is invited to comment on the transportation and sustainability plan. Visit sjcog.org and look under "news" for the "initial draft."

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The public is invited to comment on the transportation and sustainability plan. Visit sjcog.org and look under "news" for the "initial draft."

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More residents would live in apartments or townhouses, more would rely on buses and trains to get around, and thousands of acres of agricultural land would be preserved if a new vision for 2040 comes true.

But it'll take a lot of money - $11 billion - and it's not clear where all of it will come from.

The draft plan, unveiled by the San Joaquin Council of Governments late last week, is important, because it determines how billions of dollars in future transportation funding will be spent.

While the money goes to roads and rails, decisions about exactly how and where to invest it can influence any number of basic quality-of-life issues in San Joaquin County.

This year, for the first time, the council's long-range transportation plan must place greater emphasis on creating "sustainable communities" - linking transportation and land use in a more direct way, the result of a new state law.

If the plan is approved later this year, less money would go toward expanding existing roadways and more would be funneled toward maintaining the roads we already have, bolstering mass transit and establishing new opportunities for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Among the highlights:

» Some growth that otherwise would have happened on the fringes of cities would instead occur within them, which would prevent more than 10,000 acres of prime farmland from being paved over, the plan predicts. That's an area larger than the size of Lodi.

» Hundreds of miles of new bike lanes would be built and sidewalks would be spruced up for pedestrians, a big shift from past plans that provided much less money for those areas. Train and bus service would be expanded, though solo trips in cars would remain by far the most common mode of transportation.

» The average density of new developments would roughly double. Traditional single-family homes would decline from 90 percent of the region's housing stock to about 58 percent, allowing for more multifamily housing and also prompting declines in water and energy use. The number of miles people drive and the number of hours they spend stuck in traffic would decrease - albeit modestly.

"What this plan does is provide options," said Randy Hatch, a Stockton slow-growth advocate. "It's about adding choices for people. And who doesn't want more choices?"

But the development community questions how many people really are looking for change.

John Beckman, head of the Building Industry Association of the Greater Valley, said most people still prefer single-family homes. He questioned whether roughly doubling the density of new developments from 4.4 housing units per acre to 9 units per acre is "aggressive and achievable," as the law demands.

That debate isn't new, and it's likely to continue in the coming months. The new documents, however, reveal another problem in translating the plan from paper to real life:

The plan calls for $11 billion in improvements by 2040. But the voter-approved Measure K sales tax hasn't brought in as much cash as expected because of the economic downturn.

To help make up the shortfall, the plan assumes the tax will be increased by another quarter-cent starting in 2016 - a move that would have to be approved by the council's board of directors and by voters.

More than a billion dollars in revenue would ride on that decision.

"The board could say, in the end, that's not the way it's going to be," said Andrew Chesley, executive director of the Council of Governments. "We'd have to look at eliminating some things (from the plan) or hope we've got a rich uncle in this county."

Contact reporter Alex Breitler at (209) 546-8295 or abreitler@recordnet.com. Follow him at recordnet.com/breitlerblog and on Twitter @alexbreitler.